Quilting Possibilities Times

News, notes & thoughts from the owner of one of NJ's finest quilt shops, Quilting Possibilities located in Forked River. www.quiltingpossibilities.net

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Quilting Possibilities

one of NJ's finest quilt shops

Thursday, January 22, 2015

We had a great event at the shop last Saturday - Aunt Reen came up from VI to speak at our 13 Months of Jane Open House and wowed the crowd! Doreen gave a wonderful presentation - complete with two quilts! - on the history of the Dear Jane quilt and also on the program we will be running for our Dear Jane Club.

I cracked open my EQ Dear Jane software today, printed off the first 13 patterns and cut out my blocks. I've started my own Dear Jane journey! I alternated between thinking I was out of my mind with all these blocks and being excited get make the quilt. The jury is still out on whether I'm crazy or not, but I'm hoping next March I'll be posting a picture of my completed Dear Jane quilt!

The blocks aren't intimidating me but I admit - those triangles, hmmmm.

23 Janiacs signed up to take this journey with me and there is still time for you to join us. Click here for more information!

Sunday, December 14, 2014

A comment by a friend on Facebook this morning about copper cookie cutters sent me sliding down the time warp hole of Pinterest this morning. I've been thinking about how to display my cookie cutters for a couple of years but have never come up with anything so they stay in the big tin on top of the china closet and in the drawer of the hutch. Two pictures on Pinterest caught my eye - one display them artfully in an old mixing bowl and the other on an antique scale. I liked both and thought I have both those things!

Down to the basement to dig out the Fairbanks #1 scale that my grandmother let me have out of her basement when I was 12. She could not imagine why I wanted it and neither could I, I just knew I did. Grammy Lint told me it was from her father's general store in Nova Scotia so I hauled it home and my father promptly claimed it, or tried to anyway. He thought it would be great for down the wharf to weigh lobsters and my mom said no, it would rust. So it sat under her china closet until I cleaned out the house three summers ago and took it home. Then it went into my basement!

This morning it came up, was cleaned up a bit and put on the vintage school desk in my kitchen. I happily dug out my Christmas cookie cutters and after seeing them all in one place, I have more than I thought . . . can you say addiction???? I brought out a vintage mixing bowl and put special cookie cutters into it with red, glass Christmas balls. I put my two blooming Christmas cactus back on the table and had my cookie cutter display. Not as artful as the pinterest ones, but I like it.

I remember making butter cookies with my mom and her letting us decorate them, the table, ourselves and some of the kitchen floor. I did it with my kids, my kids did it with my Mom and now I'm doing it with the grandbabies. Traditions - love them.

Looking at the scale reminds me of Grammy Lint. And Grampy Lint as he wrapped everything in newspaper and there is still newspaper stuck to the bottom of the scale (and I'm leaving it there). The cookie cutters remind me of mom and the bowl has memories in it too. Biscuit cutters from Nana Sawyer. Two cookie cutters - a lobster and a lobster boat - I had made to make my brother Sooky cookies for Christmas. And if he sees this, he'll probably call and ask why he hasn't gotten any in years . . . . A loon one from Minnesota.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Yesterday I decided that I needed to be realistic and move our display of Christmas projects if I wanted anyone to have time to make them. So I did my usual wandering around my house, garage and attic wishing I had time to go antiquing for all the neat stuff that I'd like to use in this display, and finally decided the display needed to be put together with what I had already and to just get on with it.Into my car went a round table my grandmother had started to strip to put her usual white paint on but felt "faint of heart" (this coming from a nurse who worked until she was 70 something delivering babies in Salem, Mass) and it sat in her cellar until I claimed it for my first apartment. It's still unfinished . . .Anyway, I love the height and shape of the table for displays so I grabbed a rectangular green table cloth to throw over it, a mason, jar, some silverware and set off for the shop. The inspiration for this display is all Terry Atkinson - she posted that picture of the napkins and silverware in a Mason jar last week.I unloaded my goodies and proceeded to make a mess of the front of the store shifting Fall out of the way and combining the two current Christmas displays into one.I put the table out, covered it with the green tablecloth - ugh - and thought to myself, this is a fabric store with beautiful fabrics, sewing machines and sergers - just make one! Ok, I remember something a fabric rep had said to me - use wide backings for home dec. So I wander over to our extra wide backing section and find a perfect green. (Now if I were planning this blog ahead of time, I'd have taken a picture of our selection of wide backings!)I impress and confuse Fern and Ellen as I measure the table, figure out the simple math and rip (oh the horrors!) the wide backing to get it on grain. The only way square fabric that wide without a HUGE table to lay it out, is to rip it - plus its easier! I cut my circle, gather up my supplies, decide it will be faster with a serger and a gathering foot, and head to the classroom. Thirty minutes later - with a few mishaps - out comes this:

The bolt of fabric is to the right.

I added the ruffle at the bottom to give it a little flair. Easy, simple to serge or sew and the display looks pretty good too.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

I collect vintage mason jars. I love them and I have no idea why. I've been looking for the green ones that came out this year but haven't managed to snag any yet. And this is the first year that I canned in a long time, so I hauled out my trusty, newer mason jars out of the garage and canned tomatoes and made butter pickles. The old ones, I just love to look at and have a pinterest I started collecting mason jars in my grandmother's cellar when I was about 12 - the same time I asked her if I could have the Hoosier cabinet and Elias Howe treadle sewing machine! Cheeky little thing but she remembered and when I moved into my first apartment - that Hoosier cabinet and treadle came out of her cellar and into my kitchen, along with all the mason jars! I have more but with the grands, not all are out. The grands know this is a NO TOUCH zone. (I told them I'd cry if they broke anything and that seems to be working!)

Terry Atkinson posted this on her Facebook page this morning - this is just too danged cute! The napkins were a project from her Groovy Girls Sewing Club we ran about four years ago, so if you belonged to that, you have the pattern already. If you didn't belong, Terry has turned it into a pattern and I just put in an order for some! We'll be using this as part of our Christmas display that will go up in the next week or so and we'll have the patterns for you.Do you collect vintage mason jars? I'll bet you do!Till next time.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

I'm back from Quilt Market and since today it's cold and rainy at the Jersey Shore, I'll just say Houston was 86 and sunny last Saturday. I spent most of that day indoors working but the walk to and from the convention center was lovely. Today I thought I'd share pictures of part of the quilt show at market for an indoor rainy day quilt show!This was the Ruby Jubilee of Quilt Market and they celebrated by have a red and white quilt show. Here are just a few of the quilts that were displayed. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Congratulations to all the quilt makers and to Quilts Inc for a show stopping, stunning display. I enjoyed it immensely and didn't even get to see it all as market closed before I'd finished.

A jaw dropping display. Notice the people on the side and that gives you an idea of how big the center display was.

Just part of the inner ring display.

Minatures- paper to the left is 8 x 10"

More minatures

Quilting Detail of the frond quilt

Intricate piecing!

This looked like a round robin quilt to me - gorgeous!

I don't think this was a vintage quilt but it could have been.

This was just amazing!

Gorgeous!

Look at the quilting!

I hope you enjoyed a little slice of this show. I love red and white quilts and this show certainly set market abuzz!Till next time.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

For some reason it's been a very long time since I blogged. Life is crazy here at the shore and I seem to have let the blog fall by the wayside. My friend Kelly Ann, (aka KA) from Kelly Ann's Quilt Shop in VA, sortof, kindof made me realize that I hadn't updated this blog in quite awhile by admitting how long it's been since she updated hers. That made me wonder when the last time I'd written . . . . whoa baby, it's been awhile!I've been sewing - not a big surprise - watching grandbabies - not a big surprise either and traveling. According to my staff, I'm rarely in the shop but I feel like I'm there all the time. Someone is exaggerating and I think it's probably all of us!Alaska was WONDERFUL. If you get the chance to go, don't hesitate.

Our latest trip was to Gloucester last weekend. A quick in and out trip - we arrived at lunch time on Saturday, crammed as much as we could into what remained of Saturday and all of Sunday, and then headed home on Monday. I realized in August I hadn't been home since Mom's funeral, so I blocked out Columbus Day weekend then and there and Jim and I headed home.My brother and sister-in-law are as crazy as we are so we get along really well - although my older brother is more of a curmudgeon than I am (I'm sure he says the same about me), we do enjoy hanging out.

Fried dough like Nana used to make

I got to eat my favorite foods - linguicia at the Azorean Restaurant Sat night and fried dough at the Topsfield Fair on Sunday afternoon. I closed my eyes, took my first bite and it was after church at Nana's any Sunday morning of my childhood. She made the best fried dough and her Sunday kitchen was always full of cousins, aunts, uncles, great aunts and uncles with at least 10 people talking at once.But first on Sunday, Laurel, Jim and I (the curmudgeon stayed home) spent three hours at an antique flea market enjoying ourselves immensely. Laurel has a thing for glassware - seriously, her glassware addiction is about level with my fabric addiction! - so I had a wonderful time trying to tempt her with anything and everything glass.

My bag was as full of hers as I found sewing treasures! The box of thread is from the Marvel Thread company in Worcester, MA, a total guess at age is from the 30s or 40s. The big wooden spool has been updated with new dowels for spools to stand on - I just thought it was cool. The sewing basket is filled with vintage sewing notions and it's a cool shape to add to my collection! How is it you look around and realize that you've acquired a pretty big collection of something????

I also bought two handfuls of wooden thread spools to put in my vintage store spool displays. I have two and they're pretty cool but they need more thread to fill them. Why I only bought two handfuls and not the whole box is a good question!What have you started to collect without realizing it? I'm thinking Jim needs to put up shelves around my sewing room so I can put all this stuff in one place. But then again, do I really want to know how much I have??????Until next time.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Do you all work on one project at a time? More than one, say two of them at the same time? More? Three? Four? FIVE? I have to admit, I have more than three going on right now but less than five. I think. Ok, maybe six. They all tend to blend together after awhile!

I'm working on a lap sized quilt for the next Stash Attack, a secret until April 1st, and I've said it before, but this is my favorite! Lots of pieces so I'm using it as a leader and ender project while working on the shop hop quilt, a secret until the end of March. What's Leaders and Enders you ask? Leaders and enders (L&Es) - not my term there is a book about it - are pieces that you put together and sew after the pieces you really want to sew are stitched. That way you don't have to cut threads in between the pieces. A lot of sewers use a scrap to sew off onto but that seems to be a waste to my "thrifty" New England soul - if I'm going to stitch on something, it's going to be used for something instead of just thrown away!

So I used the Stash Attack pieces as Leaders and Enders for doing the Shop Hop Quilt, now I'm using the next Strip Club quilt as L&Es for the Stash Attack project ( and I slipped three baby quilt tops into the rotation on my "Snew Day" Monday and used them for L&Es) and when the Stash Attack top is done, I'll slip another one into the rotation that's patiently waiting for a pieced border. I won't admit to how many are in line to be worked on . . .

I know there are sewers out there who can only work on one thing at a time but I must have some type of ADD because I can't for some reason. I like seeing all the different colors of the current projects on the sewing table, cutting table and ironing board. I just wish my design wall was big enough to put two projects up on it at a time.